I Walked With A Zombie (1943)

Written by Curt Siodmak & Ardel Wray / Directed by Jacques Tourneur

You up?

The Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur collaborations are fantastic pieces of moody gothic atmosphere, period. Lewton and Tourneur's intense attention to detail, camera movement, light, shadow, and sound make for films that create haunting and disturbing images to this day. The story and characters of I Walked With A Zombie may not be as strong as those in Cat People but the filmmaking is just as strong and impressive, aging fantastically.

XX (2017)

Although XX has less of a narrative thread tying together its variety of spooky shorts, it feels much more cohesive than Southbound did. The only connecting thread between the films other than a beautiful interstitial animated sequence between them is that each film was written and directed by women, hence the title. As is the struggle with many anthologies, the shorts are so widely different, that some land better than others. Each short in XX works for what it is though and each one has a great quality to enjoy. Vuckovic's The Box, a short based on a piece by Jack Ketchum is a bit of existential parental dread. Annie Clark's is easily the best, not particularly scary, but a wonderfully fun piece of macabre black humor. Roxanne Benjamin's is a gory monster creature feature. Karyn Kusama's is the second best with a surreal piece of dark, satirical fantasy. Each short has a strong sense of style and their uses of sound in particular are very strong. In the end, the worst thing I can say about each of these shorts was that I was sad when they were over. I could have watched a feature version of each film without a doubt.

Evolution (2015)

I'm honestly still trying to figure this one out. I liked it, but I'm still trying to figure out why. Lucile Hadzihalilovic has created a fascinating nightmare fantasy world that thrives on oneric logic and imagery. The film is hypnotizing and always beautiful, even when the narrative is cold and distant. It's the type of film where everything is a metaphor. For what exactly? That's for the audience to figure out, and it's not going to be easy to figure out. It's going to take you a long time before you can decipher just what Hadzihalilovic had intended.

Southbound (2015)

Written and Directed by Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath, & Radio Silence

This hitchhiker looks safe to pick up...

Anthology films are inherently tricky. There are some great examples of them, but man are they ever hard to pin down. The problem lies in the fact that there’s never a guarantee that every short included in an anthology will be worth your time as a viewer so the final product is typically a mixed bag of quality. Southbound does its best to fix this problem by having the stories loosely tie into each other, which helps out some, but the problem is that the narrative thread is loose and feels only half-baked, resulting in a film that is even more uneven than most anthology films tend to be. The two best shorts are sandwiched into the middle of the film, which certainly doesn’t help the attention span of the audience.

One and a Half out of Five Weird Lovecraftian Tentacle Skeleton Things

Pumpkinhead (1988)

Stan Winston. He's a household name, even if you don't know his name. Think of any hugely impactful visual effects film and he's behind it. Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Aliens, and the list goes on and on. The man is a legend no matter what. Something that many tend to also forget: he's directed two feature films. One of them is a movie with Anthony Michael Hall called A Gnome Named Gnorm and the other one...is Pumpkinhead. This movie is definitely an excuse for Winston to have fun with practical effects, as the story itself is barely there. It starts off competently enough. After a few "city kids" accidentally kill the young child of a simple farmer played by Lance Henriksen and he seeks revenge by going to an old Swamp Witch and asking her to resurrect a demon that will murder the teenagers. After that, the story quickly goes flying off the rails. Even then, it's still a fun time, as the effects themselves are impressive and the screenplay itself is massively goofy. But it does go to show that it's not surprising his directing career is not as long as his visual effects career.

The Dark Half (1993)

Written and Directed by George A. Romero

"Sugar...give me sugar...in water."

George Romero tends to only get recognized for his living dead films, which is fine, because those movies are legitimate masterpieces, but it's a shame that his films outside that universe get shoved into the corner more often than they should. There are uneven but interesting films like Bruiser, but then there's also masterpieces like Martin. And then there's The Dark Half, a film that's not quite a masterpiece, but still a solid, fun and impressive genre piece from a genuinely gifted filmmaker. The Dark Half pulls off something that a lot of other films fail at: the ability to be both brooding, intense, and dark, while also being playful and slightly tongue-in-cheek. Based on a Stephen King novel (that I haven't read yet, so I can't compare the two), The Dark Half is the story of Thad Beaumont, a man who was born to write. Even as a young boy, he's been full of stories. After experiencing strange noises and crippling headaches as a boy, he's operated on, where it's discovered that there is a consumed twin living inside his brain. As a man, this supposedly dead twin returns from the grave as a manifestation of his "dark half" if you will, rampaging against those that Beaumont loves. There's a kind of beautiful, magical realist quality to how the evil twin, George Stark, appears. It's a lot like how Leonard Smalls is treated in Raising Arizona. In fact, the movie's biggest misstep is when the story tries to explain logically how George Stark manifested itself. It's much more fun to just take it at face value that this metaphor for evil is now a walking talking person for no reason. Timothy Hutton is fantastic in the dual role and is also surrounded by some great supporting cast members as well, including a young Michael Rooker (You know, from Guardians of the Galaxy). There's never a dull moment, even when the movie starts to lose its footing a bit. This is a forgotten gem that's worth rediscovering.

Demon (2015)

Written by Pawel Maslona & Marcin Wrona / Directed by Marcin Wrona

Pictured Above: Not the Demon.

Arthouse horror and mainstream horror more often than not tend to butt heads, but Marcin Wrona's intense polish supernatural thriller does a masterful job of walking the line between the two worlds. Stylistically, the film is akin to Robert Egger's The Witch, except narratively it's a tad bit formulaic in its approach to a big wedding gone wrong and the hosts' desperate attempts to keep a possibly possessed groom away from the happy partygoers, blissfully chugging down vodka like it's water at the reception. There's a slight bit of pitch black humor thrown in for good measure as well. The landscapes and geography of the film are as important to the story as the human characters, the foggy, silent hills of Poland creating a dense, humid atmosphere. Never a dull moment to be seen, this is one of those movies that makes you gawk at the fact that more people haven't seen it.

Dark Water (2002)

Anyone who’s ever lived in an apartment complex can relate to the inherent stress of dealing with old buildings, mold, leaking ceilings, and disinterested management. Once you throw vengeful ghosts into the mix, all bets are off. Hideo Nakata’s excellent ghost story, Dark Water, does that and more with an effectively unnerving and beautifully claustrophobic tale of a mother and daughter living in an old apartment building where the ghost of a drowned girl wanders its lonely halls. With its heavy atmosphere and creepy imagery alone, Dark Water would be a hugely entertaining movie, but Nakata’s emphasis on story and character, and the strong performances of the cast, take a creepily fun movie and make it something you can also become strongly invested in emotionally. The mystery of the film is expertly paced, keeping you guessing, but yet again, the crux of the mystery is character based, giving us a reason to keep caring about the struggles of the two protagonists while also having fun playing our nerves like a harp.

Dolls (1987)

Written by Ed Naha / Directed by Stuart Gordon

What are you doing reading this review? Go watch this amazing movie already!

From the opening shot of Dolls I knew I was in for an amazing time. Two punks hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere get muddy water splashed on them from a car driven by a bitter woman, stuck on a trip with her lazy boyfriend and his child. It only gets better from there. Dolls accomplishes a task that more horror films should strive for, walking a balance beam between fun, playful filmmaking and genuinely horrifying filmmaking. Even when it is scary, this movie never stops being just flat out fun. The film feels like an R-rated version of a family adventure film, with most of the story filtered through the eyes of Judy Bower, the adorably plucky young child being dragged along on a family vacation by two comically terrible parental units. Once their car breaks down in the middle of a rainstorm, the dysfunctional family is driven to a delightfully gothic old castle where an old toymaker and his wife reside. Later on, the two punks from the side of the road and a warm-hearted man named Ralph also end up looking for shelter from the storm in the old dark house. But after everyone retires for the night, some strange things start happening, particularly involving the collection of dolls made by the eccentric toymaker. As silly as everything is, the characters of the story are sympathetic and well crafted. Aside from a few caricatures, you genuinely care about what happens to these characters, trapped inside a magic house, chased around by demented toys. Even the “villains” of the story are three-dimensional, with real motivations driving their actions.

Curtains (1983)

Written by Robert Guza Jr. / Directed by Richard Ciupka

TFW all the good Halloween costumes at Party City were already taken.

Let's be honest. Slasher films typically aren't that scary. I don't mean that as an insult, but slasher films are kind of like the action movies of the horror genre. Their appeal isn't usually a sense of dread or terror, but a morbid fascination with seeing which insufferable character will meet the killer next, each death gorier than the next, not that there's anything wrong with that. Of course there are the pioneers and the legends of the genre as a shining example to prove me wrong. There are plenty of Freddys, Jasons, and Michael Myers out there, but there's also plenty of movies like Curtains: a Z-Grade movie with delusions of A-Grade grandeur. Curtains wastes no time setting up the pins it will be gradually knocking down, gathering together six eager actress types inside a creepy mansion at the top of a snowy mountain range, each with their own generic stereotype as their one character trait. This movie is a Slasher-By-Numbers movie even when it thinks its on the same level as a movie like Suspiria. The lofty ambitions it never reaches does keep it entertaining. It's hard to judge the film on a visual level when the transfer I watched was so godawful. At times it's impossible to see what's going on or who's doing what through the digital haze. There is an amusing game to play throughout the movie which is "when does the cameraman or boom operator start to fall asleep?" as there are multiple shots in which the tops of sets are revealed or the boom mic starts to lazily drift into the top of the frame. The film does create a few great moments of atmospheric horror, particularly through the mask the killer uses and a final sequence that oddly takes place inside a prop storage room that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Curtains perfectly represents the cinematic version of its six actress characters. Each one has high hopes and lofty dreams of reaching the top, even though compared to everyone else out there, it'll never make the cut.

The Oblong Box (1969)

Written by Lawrence Huntington / Directed by Gordon Hessler

Just a typical Saturday afternoon for Vincent Price.

What would a Shocktoberfest be without at least one Vincent Price film? The late, great horror legend practically embodies everything wonderful about the spirit of horror movies, movies that are meant to be watched during the days of October. There's nothing like a Vincent Price movie to put you in the spirit of Halloween. There seems to be a trend in my 2017 viewings with feature films based on short stories, two of them being Edgar Allan Poe stories so far. The Black Cat seems to be the only one so far that was best able to pull off turning a short story into a feature length film, simply using the basic premise of the story as a jumping off point for something much stranger. The Oblong Box makes a similar mistake as most short story adaptations by trying too hard to add subplots and silly mysteries to a perfectly good creepy little tale about a man wrongfully buried alive and seeking revenge. Even so, the film is still good, mostly due to Vincent Price's ability to elevate any film he starred in, as well as a wonderful supporting role from Christopher Lee. There's also something elegant about the workmanship of most 60's Edgar Allan Poe adaptations making them seem much more artfully crafted than they probably were. Through low budget constraints, the film finds clever ways through visual language to do things like hide the face of the deformed brother. It's impossible to say no to a Vincent Price film. Even the films where the people behind the camera seem disinterested, Price never does.

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Written by Jeff Buhler / Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

Broodley Cooper

Unfortunately on the day of this entry, the world is in a dark, sad place, so much so, that I even felt guilty about writing a post for today. But I believe that stories and movies in particular are cathartic and are meant especially for dark times like these. They can be mirrors to the world around us, or they can be windows into another one, serving as a brief escape to keep us from going crazy. Even a movie with as twisted and as bizarre of a sensibility as The Midnight Meat Train can be a cathartic form of escapism. Midnight Meat Train certainly is twisted, and it certainly is bizarre, but it takes a little while to get there. Just like The Black Cat, Midnight Meat Train is very loosely based on a short story by a horror legend, in this case, Clive Barker. The film does its best to flesh out the simple premise of the original short story, which is probably its biggest misstep, causing the first half of the film to play out like a Twilight Zone episode directed by an alternate dimension Alfred Hitchcock who specialized in making nu-metal music videos. Pre-Fame Bradley Cooper plays a struggling photographer in New York who is obsessed with finding the gritty underbelly of the city he lives in. When his midnight strolls lead him to discover a possibly murderous butcher played by Vinnie Jones, Mr. Cooper takes a sharp left turn from Normal Guy Highway onto Crazy Conspiracy Nutjob Road and it's only downhill from there. Ryuhei Kitamura has a fascinating visual eye and creates some genuinely dreamy atmospheres, although they're hampered down by early 2000's "edgy" editing. The screenplay is absurdly silly, and that only starts to work in the movie's favor after it throws off the shackles of trying to make everything make sense and just embraces the batshit insanity of Barker's world. In the end, it's a fun ride. The end destination is worth the trip, even if there are too many stops along the way.

The Black Cat (1981)

Written by Lucio Fulci and Biagio Proietti / Directed by Lucio Fulci

Aww! He wants to kill me!

Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat may not necessarily be scary, but it’s still delightfully gothic enough to still be horror. Very loosely based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story, the film mostly revolves around a series of murders in a small Italian town that are being committed by a supernatural (and adorable) black cat. As with all Fulci films, the film is constantly in a state of deliriously heightened cinematic style, making it a delight to watch. From extreme close ups of characters’ eyes reacting in terror to POV shots of the evil cat roaming through the streets, every shot feels deliberate and unique. When you watch a Lucio Fulci movie, you’re not watching for the substance, you’re watching for the style, and that style delivers throughout The Black Cat, only starting to drag near the last 15 minutes of the film, but even then, there’s still something to enjoy about what Fulci is doing.

I’m a bit of an emotional person in general, especially when it comes to pop culture. I get a lump in my throat when I hear the song “Into The West” at the end credits of The Return of the King. A song reminds of a specific time and place in my life, triggering waves of nostalgia. Hell, I even tear up and cry just watching a trailer for an inspirational movie these days. But there is one scene, in one of my favorite movies, that makes me more emotional than just about any other moment in a movie I can think of.

An hour and thirty seven minutes into Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, Chihiro — Or at this point, still Sen — has lured the monster No Face outside of the Spirit Bath House where she’s been kept since the beginning of the film. This is the first time Chihiro has ventured outside the Bath House grounds since arriving. The real world that Chihiro and her parents entered through seems to have disappeared. All that surrounds her now is an endless landscape of perfectly blue water, as she wades her way to the lone train stop in the middle of nowhere.

When she hands the ghostly ticket-taker the train tickets that Kamaji the Boiler Man gave her, the ticket-taker counts her, the little rat, and the bird perched on it’s back...and then one more head. Chihiro turns around to see No Face, no longer a monster, standing behind her. Even though only moments ago, No Face was trying to devour her, Chihiro doesn’t hesitate to extend an invitation for No Face to come along with them as they travel to Swamp Bottom, to visit Zeniba, the evil sister of Yubaba the Witch. They take their seats among other faceless, nameless spirits, all trying to get home, and begin the journey through this watery, haunted world.

There’s so much about this scene aesthetically that makes it so damn moving and melancholic, and just like any Miyazaki film, there’s loads to unpack in every single frame of these three minutes and twenty seconds. Part of what makes the scene so lovely is the fact that it takes place right after what is probably the most intense sequence of the film. No Face tearing through the Bath House, trying to eat Chihiro while uncontrollably projectile vomiting everywhere is masterfully handled, with excellent sound design that bashes against your nerves like No Face skidding down hallways and slamming into every corner. By the time we escape the Bath House with Chihiro, the sound design quiets almost to silence, with nothing but distant breezes and lapping waves gracing our ears. Once the beautiful piano piece by Joe Hisaishi kicks in, I dare you not to start getting emotional.

Or perhaps the key to the scene’s melancholy lies in No Face. Your heart breaks as he slowly chases after Chihiro and is overtaken by the waves of the approaching train. His sheepish insistence to be included even after his rampage and his neurotic shyness once entering the train, only taking a seat after Chihiro calls him over and demands that he behaves speaks volumes to Miyazaki’s character development and the fact that there are never truly any villains in a Hayao Miyazaki film.

The childish innocence of Boh and the bird as they hop up and down, gazing out the window at the passing landmarks, excited to be outside the monstrous castle for the first time, or snuggling up in Chihiro’s lap once they’ve tired themselves out near the end of the trip, brings to mind nostalgia for family trips I took while a child, the feeling of falling asleep on a long car ride and waking up in a strange new place hours later.

One of my favorite parts of this scene is Miyazaki’s faith in using no dialogue or exposition whatsoever, letting the entire scene play out in montage as landmarks speed by and we are treated to gorgeous wide shots full of skies painted red with the setting sun. As the other patrons of the train file out and night creeps into the sky, Chihiro and her friends are left alone on the train as neon lights fly by in an existential shot that could easily be a masterful painting hung in an art gallery.

Out of all these elements though, the thing that makes this scene the most beautiful part of the movie is also what makes Miyazaki one of the most important storytellers in history. The depths of his films know no boundaries. Miyazaki does so much more than just tell a simple fairy tale. He has breathed life into a fictional world and made it more real than anyone else could ever imagine. This strength is highlighted by what could easily be the most dismissive part of the scene: the spirits on the train. There are endless stories that could be delved into these characters who serve no practical function in Chihiro’s journey. Where are these ghosts going to, and will they ever reach their destination?

The two most inspiring examples of this depth are brief images that create a haunting, lasting impression that has stuck with me for years after seeing the film for the first time. The first is the sight of an older spirit holding the hand of a child spirit at a Train Crossing, watching the vehicle speed past them. In the far off distance, there is a village. It looks like they’ve traveled quite a long distance to reach this Crossing. Did they miss the train? Are they lost?

My favorite image takes place at another Train Station stop halfway through their journey. After the train pulls out of the station again, continuing on its way, Chihiro glimpses a little girl spirit, who looks like she could be her own age, her hands clasped together, watching the train move away, as she is left behind. Who is that little girl waiting for? How long has she been waiting? How much longer will she have to wait?

The stories of these ghosts and the pure empathy that Miyazaki has for such small characters is so touching and important. This empathy and devoted attention to detail is what makes the movie so timeless. No matter how many times I watch it, this scene will always hit me in a spot that few other stories do, as it makes me think about just how far this fantasy world goes. It makes me wish I could ride the train, and be a part of that world.

It's finally here. I am finally calling it. Although there are still plenty of movies from the previous year that I have yet to see (Hunt for the Wilderpeople, I Am Not A Serial Killer, Sing Street) we're already a month and a half into 2017 and most lists like these are obsolete. I was holding out for Jarmusch's Paterson since I am such a huge fan, and I would say it certainly paid off. Even though it's already so late, I love making lists like this so much that I couldn't help but make one. Also, before you say anything about any placement of films or any films that were not on the list, I'd like to say that this was a very very hard list to solidify. I'm still not sure this is exactly how I feel about everything I've seen, but as I said before, I've been putting this off for way too long. 2016 was a stressful and sad year, but one faithful constant was going to the cinemas. It was rare that I went to anything this last year that I truly hated. 2016 was certainly one of the best years for movies in a while.

15. I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives In The House

This was the first hard call to make, as most tail-end list titles are. Does this one deserve to be on the top 15 list more than something like Midnight Special or The Neon Demon? I'm going to argue that yes it does. While films like those are probably better and I probably liked them better, I was incredibly struck by my viewing of this film and I also feel for it as an underdog of 2016 that completely flew under the radar of most and dismissed as just something on Netflix by others. Running the festival circuit for a long time, this film was finally picked up by Netflix. While I love that Netflix gives a home to lots of great independent film, their bad relationship with theater chains stopped this film from getting the proper theatrical release it deserved. This is a movie that deserves to be seen on a large screen and heard through gigantic speakers. It is a quiet, whispery, and haunting film that will worm its way into your brain and stay there for a long time. This film feels like if Terrence Malick made a gothic ghost story and I absolutely adored it. Considering how much it affected me just by watching it on a laptop with headphones, I can only imagine how wonderful it must have been to see it on the big screen at the festivals it played. And so for that, I would like to give IATPTTLITH a shout-out as one of the unsung underdogs of 2016.

14. Paterson

Jim Jarmusch is an essential American filmmaker, not only in independent film, but in everything. If you can't agree with that...well then...bye, I guess. Jarmusch's love of simple things, details, oddballs and the unique lyricism of everyday life is special and uniquely his own vision. Decades from now, a movie like Paterson will be an excellent time capsule of life in the 20th-21st century. There is a pattern and rhythm to Jarmusch films that is so beautiful. Paterson is simply one week in the life of a poetry-writing bus driver, and that is essentially it. There are interesting and surprising things that happen, yet ultimately this week will not define who Paterson or the people around him are, and that is beautiful. It's the power of simple moments that makes Paterson such a beautiful portrait of everyday life.

13. Little Sister

Another exciting surprise of 2016. Like Jarmusch, Zach Clark is excellent at creating portraits of ordinary weirdos. This film spoke to me on a level that rarely gets reached most of the time. Not many films truly capture the strange dichotomy of religion and rebelliousness in small Southern mountain towns like Little Sister does. The film follows Colleen, a nun about to take her vows, who returns home for a week after her brother has been released from a Veteran's Hospital after a tragic event overseas. While there, Colleen comes face to face with the self she left behind and her family life she's trying to bury. Little Sister reminded me of the High School Quentin from Sylva, North Carolina, attending youth group and loving God but also energized by old school punk music and horror movies. There's rarely a movie as quietly special as this one. Not to be missed at all.

12. Hell or High Water

It's the Coen Brothers Western that the Coen Brothers never made. Hell Or High Water is without a doubt one of the strongest examples of solid genre storytelling in filmmaking. There isn't anything revolutionary or historical in its approach to a tale of sympathetic anti-heroes on the run from the law, but its coherence and expertly crafted screenplay, direction, and casting made for one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking, and just flat out fun movie-going experiences of 2016. This tale of two brothers on a state-wide bank robbing crime spree is witty and slick, but also a wonderful showcase of well rounded and three dimensional characters. Just like its main characters, this movie is an underdog and a dark horse. It's a nominee for the Best Picture of the Year but it really has no chance of winning, but boy wouldn't it be fun to see this little guy stealing the little golden statue and driving off into the night?

11. Green Room

We've all had those fantasies before. What would we do if we found ourselves in the most dangerous situation imaginable with no way out? Would we be crafty, ruthless, cowardly? Jeremy Saulnier and his cast and crew put us right in the middle of one of our most terrifying collective nightmares. The characters in this film aren't Jason Bourne-types. They're scared kids who sometimes don't know any better than to do something horrifyingly life-risking just to stay alive. The violence is very real and so are the characters. The film also captures a particular societal division right now, as well as a division that has been a conflict throughout the history of the punk rock subculture. The film doesn't necessarily offer a polished or clean answer to this problem, but it knows that nothing really can. And yes, it's okay to punch nazis.

10. The Witch

I don't think there was a more expertly crafted film that came from a first time feature filmmaker this year than The Witch. Everything about this movie is on point from the slightest snap of a tree branch in the woods to the most visceral imagery. This movie is a knife. Eggers lightly grazes your skin with it at first, then proceeds to slowly dig it further and further underneath your skin for the remaining 90 minutes.

9. I Am Not Your Negro

This documentary probably could not have come at a better time. Relying solely on beautiful atmospheric photography, archival footage, and the words of James Baldwin eloquently performed by Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro is quietly devastating and universally important. It is eye-opening and revelatory. If by the end of this film, your thoughts and feelings on race perceptions haven't even budged a little bit, there's a good chance you're probably in a coma.

8. Under The Shadow

2016 was a great, great year for horror films and Under The Shadow is a shining example of that. I can't remember a movie scaring me this viscerally in a long time. I shouted, screamed, tensed up, and jumped more than any other theatergoing experience of 2016. On the surface, the movie reads like the Middle-Eastern answer to The Babadook, but a description such as this is a disservice to the movie as it is much more deep and emotional than a pitch like that makes it seem. It takes cues from Del Toro in the way it parallels political history with supernatural, mythological horror, and still leaves room for humanity. This is a must see for a fan of horror movies and honestly just movies in general.

7. Manchester by the Sea

Manchester by the Sea is in itself much like a body of water. It’s gorgeous, deep, and uncontainable. It is calm and peaceful one minute, rocking you to your core the next, only to return to another serene moment of tender beauty. It is often under-appreciated just how hard it is to truly craft a film that is a slice of life. More inexperienced filmmakers will actively resist good stories and characters, claiming they don’t happen in real life. Like Paterson, events in Manchester By The Sea could easily start taking place tomorrow and it would seem perfectly real. Some of the best stories in life are the ones that happen in the everyday details.

6. The Lobster

If I ever make a movie as fully realized, affecting, and flat out wonderful as The Lobster I'd probably retire because I don't think I could ever top it. The premise of a world where everyone must be in a couple or else become an animal is outright absurd and yet Yorgos Lanthimos finds a perfect way to make it feel like this world exists somewhere. Lanthimos' vision is a treasure of modern cinema. His dry humor and fearlessness makes his movies the most fun punch in the gut you'll ever get.

5. Silence

Martin Scorsese's decades-spanning battle with faith and religion culminates in what I strongly believe will go down as one of his finest films. Like all great films, this must be watched more than once to truly recognize the brilliance. I have not had the chance to see it a second time but I greatly anticipate it, as it was impossible to shake from my head the story of those Jesuit priests and their followers the week after seeing the film. There are no easy answers in this movie and that is the way it should be. Knee-jerk reactions have no place in the world of this film where black and white dichotomy simply does not exist.

4. Moonlight

There most certainly was not a more uniquely distinctive voice in film during 2016 than in Barry Jenkins' masterful Moonlight. It's impossible not to be moved by such a powerful piece of cinema. Tour de force gets tossed around a lot these days but this film deserves that title. A quiet epic that doesn't need to boast. The life of one boy in three stages is genuinely heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. A stunning use of color, shadows, and light like nothing you've ever seen before, all the while highlighting one of the most beautiful stories of the last few years.

3. The Handmaiden

Park Chan-Wook is a force of nature like no other to be reckoned with. Practically every film of his is filled to the brim with the most delightful tiny details of cinematic flourish that all come together to make masterful portraits of storytelling in every film. I can't think of a Chan-Wook film that I've seen that didn't somehow completely envelop me and make me feel totally transported to another time and place. The Handmaiden may be a book adaptation, but the end result is 100% Park Chan-Wook.

2. Loving

Jeff Nichols has only made five feature films yet he has already established himself as one of the greatest American auteurs of the 21st Century. 2016 was a great year for Nichols indeed. First he released his wonderful Sci-Fi chase film, Midnight Special, then he debuted this touching and deeply emotional biopic. Nichols pivots his way through making a biopic by sidestepping all the normal pitfalls of standard biopics. He does not overstate or fake the drama of Richard and Mildred Loving. He simply presents it as it is, a wonderful love story between two people whose only crime was loving each other. I saw this film at the exact right time, only a couple of weeks after the most stressful and depressing election in American history. After endless debates, shouting, social unrest, and violence, it was truly enlightening to watch such a quiet, gentle, and touching film. I was a puddle by the end of this film.

1. La La Land

This movie has sadly become kind of a punching bag due to all the awards praise, even though both Damien Chazelle and Barry Jenkins have praised each other's work this year (I still think Moonlight should win Best Picture by the way). Awards are kind of a curse more than anything. But I'm not talking about "controversy," I'm talking about the very best, most well-crafted, most cinematic movie of the year, and I unabashedly think it is La La Land. Chazelle's ode to old movie musicals wrapped up in a story of doomed love is just as tight and well-executed as his first directorial feature, Whiplash. Damien Chazelle has a long way to go in his career and hopefully he'll just be getting better with each film. Where to start? The songs are wonderful, the dancing is intoxicating, the colors and clothing are drop dead gorgeous, the camera-work is jaw-dropping. To dismiss this movie as cotton-candy drivel is downright insulting to a movie that is seamless in it's craft and also deceptively simple. This isn't just a love story, it's a critical examination of ambition, nostaliga, dreams, and relationships. It just so happens that it's also unbelievably fun to watch.

2016 turned out to be a pretty crummy year for the human race. Many great talents departed, a whiny toddler was given the most powerful role in the United States, and a trailer for a fifth Transformers movie was released, just to name a few unfortunate incidents. But shining through all the muck of the world is the art created by human beings. I'm obsessed with it and I really love cataloging it. To start with, I've tried my hardest to pick 15 great music albums from this year. Television and movies will follow, but the movies bit will probably come later since most of the great last few movies of the year are never available to me until January.

Before we begin, I should state I am not a musician or an expert on music in any way. I tried to be a musician as a teen and then realized I have absolutely no attention span for learning how to play. I have always had a deep affinity for music though and many songs, albums, and artists mean a great deal to me. Anyway, keep that in mind if you know more about music than I do. I'm just a fan, and these were the albums that made the biggest impression on me in the year 2016. Okay, here we go.

Holy Ghost by Modern Baseball

This was an incredibly brave move from Modern Baseball, to wear so many things on their sleeves in one album, but it truly works. Emotional, touching, and inspiring.

Favorite Track: Everyday

The Well-Intentioned Virus by Zao

This one came right out of left field in the last couple of weeks and it was like a wonderful slap to the face of just pure unadulterated metal. This is a welcome return for the Hardcore legends. Blistering, brutal, and relentless for a full 42 minutes.

Favorite Track: Broken Pact Blues

Puberty 2 by Mitski

Mitski is a new name for me, but I've instantly fallen in love with her music. These aching fuzz rock ballads are to die for.

Favorite Track: Your Best American Girl

Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest

I'll admit to the fact that I couldn't really get into the first couple of Car Seat Headrest albums but this one is so unique and fresh and distinctive that I immediately fell in love.

Favorite Track: Vincent

Real by Lydia Loveless

Lydia Loveless taps into a particularly beautiful strain of deeply personal, honest, and yet still undeniably fun Americana music, even when it's bleak.

Favorite Track: Out On Love

Cashmere by Swet Shop Boys

Riz Ahmed and Heems together is a collaboration made in Heaven. Hooky, snarky, witty, and insanely danceable all at the same time.

Favorite Track: Aaja

Skeleton Tree by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Nick Cave is a knight in shining armor of dark, lyrical, haunting poetry. That poetry takes on a new form after the death of his son. The power and emotion of personal tragedy has shaped one of the most emotionally powerful albums in a long time.

Favorite Track: Magneto

Awaken, My Love! by Childish Gambino

Has to be one of the most amazing and successful artistic 360's in a long, long time. Sweet, soulful, and groovy.

Favorite Track: Redbone

Painting of a Panic Attack by Frightened Rabbit

This one grew on me. At first I wasn't sure if I enjoyed it as much as their previous work, but it has solidified itself in my mind as another Frightened Rabbit masterpiece.

Favorite Track: I Wish I Was Sober

A Moon Shaped Pool by Radiohead

Another welcome return from a band on a hiatus that felt much too long. It was worth the wait though. Radiohead are haunting science fiction geniuses.

Favorite Track: Daydreaming

The Dream is Over by PUP

Pure, chaotic, melodious, angsty punk rock. What more can I say? Maintains an energy that is hard to keep up for the length of a full album.

Favorite Track: DVP

Telefone by Noname

An amazing debut album. I cannot wait to hear more from her.

Favorite Track: Diddy Bop

The Impossible Kid by Aesop Rock

Aesop is a legend. This will go down as one of his finest works.

Favorite Track: Kirby

Coloring Book by Chance The Rapper

This is the most pure distillation of joy I've ever heard in my life. Chance is an angel.

Favorite Track: No Problem

Blackstar by David Bowie

Oh Captain, my Captain! You were too pure for this Earth. We were so lucky to have you as long as we did. Your swan song will live on as a true musical masterpiece. Sleep well, Thin White Duke.

So there you have it. Feel free to agree and disagree as much as you like. This was honestly very very difficult. There were too many great albums this year. Just because I'm a fair sport, a few great Honorable Mentions:

It's been mentioned countless times that I was quite easy to scare as a child. The slightest hint of terror in any form of media (movies, television, books, music, you name it) would have me fleeing from the room in fright, eventually coaxed back in by very patient family members ensuring me everything was fine.

Whenever we would visit my father's family in Goldsboro North Carolina, my brother and I would sleep on air mattresses in a room that was typically full of various pieces of memorabilia collected by one of my uncles. Hung on the backside of the bedroom door was a poster that mortified my little child brain so much whenever the door was closed that eventually my parents made my uncle hang a curtain over the poster any time we visited. That only did so much for me though. Sitting in the dark at night, staring at the curtain, I knew that poster was still there, peeking through, staring right back at me.

The poster in question was for Lucio Fulci's 1980 film, City of the Living Dead, although the poster read The Gates of Hell, which was the title the film was given when it first debuted in the United States in 1983. The poster in question depicted a cityscape covered in a murky night and the head of a rotting undead corpse hovering above the buildings and staring out at the viewer with a glazed, unsympathetic glare. It was that zombie's eye (He only had one. The other was missing) gazing at me that truly haunted me to my core, that and the blood red words reading he Gates of Hell or the cryptic tagline "THE DEAD SHALL RISE AND WALK THE EARTH" certainly didn't help.

Time passed, I grew up, and I slowly but surely got bit by the horror bug. By the time I was in college I was a fully fledged horror genre fan. The image of that poster still haunted me. We hadn't visited Goldsboro in a long time and I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen it, but the imagery stayed fresh in my mind. Eventually my horror nerd exploits led me to discovering the work of Lucio Fulci.

I knew who he was at the time solely because I had read about Zombi, specifically the two most popular scenes, the zombie/shark fight and the infamous eye gouging, but that was as far as my knowledge extended at the time. Eventually in my journey through horror, I came across City of the Living Dead, and I fell in love with it. After some post-screening research, I discovered that this was this movie was actually Gates of Hell and everything came full circle.

I've seen a few more Fulci films since then (Zombi, Don't Torture A Duckling, and most recently, the second film in the GOH trilogy, The Beyond) and with each film I find something else to love. At first glance, Fulci films can be easily dismissed as "trashy" cinema. They're pulpy, low budget, the plots are fairly silly, and depending on what your sensibilities are, they can seem pretty depraved.

But I realized something about Fulci last night while watching The Beyond and I think it has a lot to do with why I enjoy his movies so much. Regardless of how old or low budget they are, Fulci films scare me more than most bigger budget horror films. I watched The Beyond by myself and halfway through the final climax I became so unnerved that I had to turn the lights on because watching in the dark was becoming much too stressful.

Fulci flicks are pure visceral horror, light on story and heavy on atmosphere. The monsters and evil forces of these movies are grim and gritty, rooted in bodily decay and destruction. Character deaths are tactile, sweaty, and gruesome. Even when the deaths are practically absurd, they feel real to our brains. Fulci's heavy shadows and slow moving cameras create a sense of dread more palpable than any other horror film. I sincerely dread whatever is hiding just offscreen or whatever is lurking in the shadows.

Particularly in The Beyond, the feeling of experiencing a nightmare you can't wake up from is ever present in the atmospheric set pieces. Moments of violence and horror are lingered upon and Fulci refuses to let us look away. The narrative isn't logical. Sequences blend together in an oneiric fashion, particularly at the end of the film as events become more and more feverish and dreamlike.

Even without the atmosphere and grit of these films, they are undeniably rich in their visuals. The cinematography of Sergio Salvati give these films massive amounts of character. The imagery is crisp, striking, and ultimately beautiful even when depicting the most horrific carnage. Fulci's influence on current filmmakers is constantly present in his films in the way he moves his camera.

Fulci films may not be the most well known horror films outside of cult status, but they have certainly stood the test of time, continuing to prove their worth by haunting our dreams well after the credits begin to roll. Even in a world with constantly evolving special effects, the practical effects of the Gates of Hell trilogy remain rooted strongly in horror film mythology where it rightfully belongs. Fulci found a way to portray the inevitability of death in such a profoundly disturbing way in the way his walking dead are depicted. Even when I'd never seen one of his films, the illustrated image of one of his zombies was enough to drive fear into my heart. And perhaps that's another reason why these movies will always frighten me more than almost any other film.

Each viewing is a reminder of that poster, watching me in the dark, never blinking, and never looking away.

There’s a scene in my favorite Christmas movie, "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer", in which our heroes Rudolph and Hermey are denied acceptance to the Island of Misfit Toys due to the fact that even though they may be misfits, they are not misfit toys, to which the gold and silver obsessed Yukon Cornelius scoffs, “Well how do you like that? Even among misfits, you’re misfits!” This line has always stood out to me. It’s humorous, but still raises an interesting idea of a character that really doesn’t belong anywhere. In a lot of ways, I think that this is the kind of character that Tim Burton has been his entire life.

Throughout my life as a Burton Nerd, I’ve developed a reputation among some of my cinephile friends as a rabid fanboy that will fight anyone to the bitter death who happens to disagree with me. While I’ve allowed myself to play into that persona in a lot of ways, the truth is that I really do feel strongly about this particular artist’s body of work, more so than any other filmmaker. I think a lot of this violent defense stems from a frustration I have with many people who argue against me and the fact that their arguments aren’t based on the actual works of Burton but rather a stereotype of his work that has seemed to replace his actual aesthetic in the eyes of detractors.

I find my eyes glazing over and my brain tuning out as soon as someone tries to convince me that it’s a bad thing that Johnny Depp has appeared in Burton films so frequently or that Danny Elfman scores almost every Burton picture. Detractors aren’t the only ones that have it wrong though. In my opinion, if you love "The Nightmare Before Christmas" but you have no idea what the film "Ed Wood" is, then you are not a Tim Burton fan. While this used to make me unspeakably angry to the point of shaking, I’ve started to become a lot more calm and understanding of this fact.

Tim Burton is an artist who makes art for one person and one person only, Tim Burton. While this has made him unbelievably popular at times, it has also made him the target of much ire and ridicule. With this, Tim Burton is misunderstood by almost everyone, from his adoring fans to the scoffing cynics. Tim Burton is the real world version of characters like Edward Scissorhands or Jack Skellington, strangers to modern society who try to do something great. At times they are cheered and celebrated, and sometimes they are booed and driven out of town simply for being themselves.

Tim Burton is the filmmaker responsible for sparking my own desire to be a filmmaker. As a child, I’d always loved movies, more than almost anything else that I loved, but Burton’s filmography wasn’t introduced to me until I was in 7th grade. It all started with an episode of Seinfeld. It’s the episode where two barbers are fighting over the love and attention of Jerry. In the end, they confront each other, only to forget their differences after they both become enraptured by a television screening of "Edward Scissorhands." This was right before I became obsessed with film history, so at the time, I thought part of the joke was that it was a fake movie, but after my father informed me that "Edward Scissorhands" was in fact a real movie, I knew I had to see it for myself. I still remember renting the VHS and popping it in, having absolutely no idea what to expect. I was expecting something normal, but what I found changed the way I looked at movies forever. I was enraptured. I never thought that films could be so personal and so fantastical at the same time.

Here was a movie that was a strange tale of a misunderstood monster whose visuals completely embraced the bizarre and the surreal aspects of this story. No other film I had ever seen before this had done such a thing. The films of Tim Burton relate more to the abstract than anything else, and yet not the kind of abstract that most adult fare is used to. All Burton films maintain a sense of childlike wonder and mischief which seems to fade for a lot of other adults, but for Burton has been a mainstay. Yet this is no reason to dismiss. This is a reason to embrace a truly one-of-a-kind and unique vision. A filmmaker and artist shows us the world through their own eyes, and Burton has been doing that non-stop his whole life with fascinatingly varied results. Even in films that don’t quite work as a whole, like 2001’s "Planet of the Apes" remake, there are moments of pure Burtony joy and wonder. The moment where General Thade is trapped behind glass and places his hand to the glass where Ari’s is and they stare into each other's’ eyes is a shared moment of heartfelt humanity between two outcast non-human creatures, which is undeniably Burtonesque.

After that, I ate up the rest of Burton’s filmography. I read everything I could and watched each film so many times I’ve reached the point where I know most of these films by heart today. When movies like "Corpse Bride" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" came out in theaters I paid for a ticket at least four times each. I wasn’t aware of the backlash until I was finally a doe-eyed film school freshman. Almost immediately, I became used receiving a similar response every time I told someone Tim Burton was my favorite filmmaker. An eye roll and a shrug and something dismissive like “Oh, his old stuff is alright.”

And then something awful happened. "Alice In Wonderland" came out. I’d spent a good portion of the year leading up to the release of the film hyping myself up and driving everyone around me crazy by not shutting up about it. Then I saw it. Worse, I saw it with a large group of other film school students. The derision among my classmates was immediate and for a few months afterwards, I was in denial about how bad it was, wanting so desperately to prove all of them wrong. But the truth of the matter was that it was a bad movie. A very bad movie. A movie that not even Burton is proud of.

The most disparaging part about "Alice In Wonderland" though, isn’t that it was a CGI nightmare mess that betrays all of his most personal aesthetics for cheap gimmicks, but that it is Burton’s most financially successful film to date (unless you adjust for inflation. Then it’s "Batman," which is encouraging). The masses flocked to it and ate it up even though it was his least personal and weakest film. This didn’t seem to matter to them, as long as they got what they thought was a Tim Burton movie, even though it is a Disney disaster wearing the skin of a Tim Burton movie, but that’s an argument for another essay. This was fuel to the fire of all those that already hated Burton enough. In a lot of ways, this seemed like a nail in the coffin to most film fans, giving them a reason to dismiss anything else that has followed, even though films like "Frankenweenie" and "Big Eyes" are quite good (I’ll also defend the hell out of the first two acts of "Dark Shadows").

The release of "Alice in Wonderland" brought to light a feeling that I’d always had yet never addressed. When I was in high school, I rolled my eyes at the people who wore Jack Skellington t-shirts, but couldn’t tell me what Burton’s first short film was named. I recall a moment in high school where I had written a paper on filmmaking and had included a photograph of Tim Burton on the set of "Sleepy Hollow" and a classmate asked me if it was a picture of Steven Spielberg. I always thought that Burton was a filmmaker who was only truly appreciated by cinephiles, yet that didn’t seem to be the case either after hearing numerous dismissals throughout film school. Apparently he didn’t fit in among the cinematic elite either.

Throughout his career, Burton has seemed uncomfortable at almost every public event or interview he’s ever participated in. He seems not only disenchanted by rejection, but even more horrified by success. The kid who used to hide in the closets of Disney Animation studios was suddenly thrown into the limelight and the results have been mixed ever since. In some ways, Tim Burton was Scissorhands, and Disney was Peg, coaxing him down from the mountain, wanting him to join the rest of society. We’re the townspeople, who at first embraced him, then turned on him for not being exactly what we wanted him to be. But some of us are Kim, who can look upon him and truly see the artist underneath all the hubbub. Too dramatic of a metaphor? Perhaps, but it works for me.

Being a fan of anything runs the risk of dangerous hyperbole on both sides. We cinephiles expect our filmmakers to be infallible and when they fail we seem to take it as a personal affront, as if the filmmaker has directly spit in our eyes. Likewise, when they have their moments of unbelievable highs we act as if there is nowhere else to go from there. There is no more room for growth. We forget that these filmmakers are people, who love movies and stories and art just as much as we do, and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail. But what really makes something a failure or a success? "Alice In Wonderland" may have disappointed me, but what if it inspired a young artist who’s going to take the world by storm years from now? Many dismiss "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" as lesser Burton, but to me, it’s always been one of his most fully realized and beautiful films.

In the end though, it doesn’t really matter what anyone else says. In a 2012 New York Times interview, Tim Burton has given possibly the most appropriate response to his career. When asked about what he wants his legacy to be, Burton responded with “The thing that I care about most - that you did something that really had an impact on them. People come up on the street, and they have a “Nightmare” tattoo, or little girls saying they loved “Sweeney Todd,” and you’re like “how were you able to see it?” Or you see people, especially around Halloween, dressed up in costume, as the Corpse Bride or the Mad Hatter, or Sally. It’s not critics, It’s not box office. Things that you know are connecting with real people.”*

That’s what matters. When all the smoke clears, Burton’s an artist whose work has touched and reached out to true misfits, weirdos, and loners, who have in turn, created their own art. That means more than any unanimous praise could ever mean.

*Itzkoff, Dave. “Tim Burton: At Home In His Own Head”. Nytimes.com. The New York Times. September 19, 2012. Web. September 17, 2016

Last night I finally caught up with the rest of the world and watched 1999's The Blair Witch Project.

I'll give you a moment to catch your breath.

Yes, it's hardly an earth-shattering statement to make for some, but for me it was a pleasant revelation, mostly because I was under the delusion that it would be a film that I would hate. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the truth was the exact opposite of what I had expected.

Part of the reason it took me so long to watch he Blair Witch Project was the fact that I was nine years old when it first came out and my love for horror stories never fully materialized until the late high school years. And even then, I still had little to no interest in the film, thinking it was bargain bin trash. Part of this strain of thought had to do with the fact that I was a bit of a snob in high school, and the other part was due to the fact that all I knew of found footage filmmaking was the slew of knock off films that followed in the footsteps of The Blair Witch Project.

Although The Blair Witch Project is hardly the first faux-documentary found footage horror film, it is still responsible for being the golden child of the genre. It's the film that spawned mainstream America's obsession with the cheap, low-budget style of filmmaking. Like Jaws and Pulp Fiction before it, Blair Witch spawned a legion of wanna be follow-up movies, trying desperately to be the next big thing in this genre. The problem of course is always that while imitation may be the highest form of flattery, it results in most filmmakers completely missing the point of what made the original film such a gem to begin with.

The Blair Witch Project started as a fake Sci-Fi channel documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch and an ominous website full of "information" about the legend. The film was marketed as real footage of teenagers lost in the woods that had been unearthed, truly earning the moniker of "found footage." One could argue that the marketing and presentation of the film was a cheap gimmick and that with time and the revelation of the fact that the film is fictional, there isn't much left to appreciate in the flick.

I'd strongly argue against that.

The Blair Witch Project feels just as fresh and well done today as it must have been when it first premiered. The reason? It actually does everything right that hardly any other found footage movie (with a few exceptions) that followed it does.

First and foremost, this film actually has the look and feel of a real documentary. This feels like old, damaged footage that was discovered by a pair of filmmakers and then carefully and artfully edited together to make a narrative of the children's final days. Most other found footage films feel like the footage is simply there for the service of a forced plot. There is no real reason for it to be found footage other than the fact that it's incredibly cheap to make them. In The Blair Witch Project the narrative is sculpted through approximately 19 hours of footage captured by the actors. The narrative comes from the footage itself, the way a real documentary would be made.

That narrative itself is also fully engaging, playing like a modern day cautionary ghost story or urban legend. It draws you in with the eerie footage of locals telling tales of strange encounters. Then you can't look away as the three students slowly go mad. The characters in this movie work, more so than characters usually do in found footage films. The reason? I think it's because their slow descent into madness is entirely believable. The film doesn't dive headfirst into the chaos nor does it drag its feet. It patiently takes its time to create a portrait of these kids losing their minds. What starts as a seed of annoyance slowly and fascinatingly grows into a tree of absolute horror as they come to terms with the fact that they're never getting out of these woods and that they're hopelessly (and maybe even supernaturally) lost. The improvised footage edited together with the atmospheric 16mm black and white footage of the surrounding forest visually aids the sense of mounting dread.

All of this climaxes into a short yet highly effective ending scene. At first I wondered whether or not this was an anticlimactic ending yet then I had a revelation that kept me up way into the night. The famous final image of the film, the Joshua character standing in the corner while Heather screams, is terrifying on more than one level. Why? Because of one of the early interviews with a local about one of the stories of The Blair Witch. He recounts that the kidnapped children were forced to stand in the corner while the murderer hacked victims apart on the other side of the room. This is how Heather finds Joshua. She's screaming. But what is she screaming at? Where's Mike? More importantly, what is happening to Mike? And with that final shot, The Blair Witch Project expertly showcases what makes everything about this movie so scary. You never see anything, and not in a Paranormal Activity sort of way, but in an unnerving sort of way. The things that scare you and get under your skin is your imagination. The fact that you never see a witch once in this movie is amazing. You can picture the witch out in the darkness making those noises, or Joshua crying out in the dead of night. Those images in your own mind are scarier than any sort of images the filmmakers could have crafted.

And that is why The Blair Witch Project still holds up today, not only because it is such a well crafted urban legend, but because it is a shining example of what the found footage genre can be and should aspire to be. That, and it really is absolutely terrifying. I had the hardest time falling asleep last night, mostly because I was too unnerved by the idea of facing the dark, having no idea what could be in there.

I'm a junior in college, lying in my dorm room bed, tossing and turning. It's 3:00AM and I can't sleep.

Finally, I throw the covers off of myself and jump out of the bed in frustration. If I can't sleep I might as well be doing something I love. I go to my movie shelf where I pick up a box set of 30 old copyright-free horror movies, the kind of box set you'd find at the bottom of a 5 dollar bin at a store like Wal-Mart or Target. I'd received the set as a Christmas gift, mostly because it had one of my favorites, "Night of the Living Dead", included in it's roster.

I go down the list of B to Z grade movies that time has mostly forgotten and stop on a particular title, "Carnival of Souls." The name is intriguing enough and I think I've heard of it before. (I had, thanks to the Criterion Collection.)

I put the disc into my laptop and start watching. The movie literally wastes no time in getting started, opening with a car race that ends in a car full of young women careening over the edge of a bridge into the muddy waters of a river. A rescue attempt does no good, although they do find one survivor, Mary Henry.

Mary Henry had plans to leave her little town, in search of a new job as a church organist in another state. Even though she's advised to postpone her trip after the accident, she sets out anyway.

That night, as she drives down a lonely stretch of highway, a ghostly face appears at the side of her window and then suddenly right in front of her car, but when she slams on the brakes, no one is there.

This was the moment of that film that absolutely gripped me and never let me go afterward. There's something so sudden and jolting about the scene that has spooked me more than most other horror pictures have. Because of this scene, I had to turn the lights on to watch the rest of the movie and then subsequently fall asleep. I wasn't going to risk a ghostly specter coming out of the darkness to drag me back with it.

From that point on, the film is a weird and wonderful nightmare as Mary is continuously hunted by the ghosts and strangely drawn towards an abandoned carnival on the outskirts of town. It's the best Twilight Zone episode that Rod Serling never thought to make. It's a simple story with a fascinating idea behind it. For someone like me, who has a lot of anti-social tendencies, its easy to relate to Mary's struggle to try to relate to the townsfolk around her while still trying to make sense of the mystery on her own.

Re-watching "Carnival Of Souls" on the fantastic Criterion blu ray release reminded me of just how much I love this scrappy little picture and why it's so inspiring to anyone with a desire to make independent genre films.

There's a lot about "Carnival of Souls" that would make a more cynical viewer snigger more than once. Everything about it is amateurish, from the editing to the make-up to the performances, yet it has so much heart that it carries you away into a dreamlike fable of isolation where you hardly notice the strings attached. Everything about the film that some viewers would discount as cheap or hokey serves to create the disconcerting feeling of a waking dream and I would argue that "Carnival of Souls" achieves this better than a lot of modern films. One of its most impressive elements is just how good it looks for a small budget horror picture. The black and white cinematography is striking, both haunting and beautiful at the same time. The simple organ score keeps the atmosphere heavy and unnerving.

And to top it all off, the fact that industrial film workers made this film for practically nothing is the most appealing factor of this production. This is a film that could have been lost in the folds of time, but instead has survived as a beloved cult classic. This real life underdog story is enough to warm my heart and bring a tear to my eye. If they did it, so can we.

"Carnival of Souls" may look like a no budget picture, but it feels like a million dollar movie with a heart of gold.